Opponents of regional development plan vent frustration at San Rafael hearing

Nearly all the speakers at a regional planning hearing in San Rafael on Tuesday criticized a long-range transportation and land-use/housing plan for Marin and the Bay Area.

The official purpose of the meeting, attended by about 100 people at the Embassy Suites Hotel, was to solicit comment on a draft environmental impact report for the draft plan, dubbed Plan Bay Area.

Few of the speakers, however, focused on the report. Instead, most of the 30 people who spoke used the opportunity to criticize the overall plan and to vent their frustration. Many were concerned about the increase in high-density, low-income housing called for in the plan.

"We are at our wits end. We just don't buy into this vision," said Richard Hall, who said he was speaking on behalf of Quiet and Safe San Rafael, a group that spans 10 neighborhoods in that city.

Robert Chilvers of San Rafael said, "Marin County is a jewel in the Bay Area, and we have to fight to keep it as beautiful as it is."

John Bitter of Mill Valley said, "We don't need the federal government telling us how to live our lives."

Vincent Welch of San Rafael delivered some of his comments in untranslated Russian, and in English he said, "This meeting reminds me of a government plan of the Soviet Union in operation, top down. This is not Brigadoon; it's a brig."

Plan Bay Area is the product of One Bay Area, a collaboration of the San Francisco Bay Area's four regional government agencies — the Association of Bay Area Governments, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, the Bay Conservation and Development Commission and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

Plan Bay Area was developed largely as a response to the California Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act of 2008, which requires each of the state's 18 metropolitan areas — including the Bay Area — to address global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions from cars and light trucks.

The plan, which extends through 2040, calls for concentration of new development near transit and jobs. Communities that plan for denser development could be rewarded with more transportation funding, and the planning process will be linked to state housing mandates.

The plan envisions Marin gaining 33,000 new residents and adding 18,400 new jobs by 2040. The new plan also predicts that Marin will add 7,510 new housing units and 8,810 new households by then. It assigns the county of Marin and Marin municipalities the task of jointly accommodating the creation of 2,292 housing units by 2022.

Elizabeth Moody of Mill Valley, the sole person to speak in favor of the plan Tuesday, said 60 percent of the Marin County's workforce commutes to work from outside the county.

"My three kids, with their eight children, could not afford to live here, even though they worked here," Moody said. "It has been very distressing for me to see that this county is so wealthy and 80 percent white."

Several speakers Tuesday, including Marin Conservation League board member Nona Dennis, challenged the validity of the plan's projections for population growth, noting that they are significantly higher than the projection contained in a report issued by the state Department of Finance in January.

Hing Wong, a senior regional planner for the Association of Bay Area Governments, has said the Department of Finance failed to factor in population growth that occurs when people move to an area because job growth is occurring there. Wong also said the Department of Finance based its projection on a period of time that included two sharp downturns in the Bay Area economy and excluded the late 1990s when the region experienced rapid population growth due to the high-tech boom.

Both Dennis and Marjorie Macris of Mill Valley, formerly the planning director for Marin County, criticized the plan for inadequately assessing the effect that sea level rise, due to global warming, would have on the development proposed in the plan.

And Ray Day of Marinwood expressed concern about the financial impact the plan would have on the Dixie School District. Day said low-income, affordable housing development slated for the area would add children to the district's schools without contributing sufficient property tax revenue to cover the added cost.

Several of the attendees refused to wait their turn at the microphone at the meeting's conclusion and angrily chided the officials conducting the meeting for not responding to questions regarding the plan's cost and when a transcript of the meeting would be available. But private security guards, on hand due to misbehavior at previous One Bay Area meetings, did not have to intercede.

Additional public meetings in Marin to discuss the plan are set for: 5 p.m. April 25 at the Marin Civic Center in San Rafael. 7 to 9 p.m. April 29 at the Marin Center in San Rafael (preceded by an open house from 6 to 7 p.m.).For more information, visit http://onebayarea.org